The Cake Eaters

I love independent movies but to be honest I watched The Cake Eaters because of Kristin Stewart. I've seen quite a few of her movies in the last weeks and aside from that Twilight crap I've came to the conclusion that she's a great actress and her performance in this film is no exception.Here she plays Georgia Kaminski,a teenager that suffers from Friedreich's ataxia, a genetic disease that causes damage to the nervous system among other things.Her mother Elizabeth is overzealous and her grandmother, Marg, is her escape.She doesn't have that much time and wants to experience love before its too late. She meets Beagle,played by Aaron Stanford, a shy 20 year old who works in the school cafeteria,they quickly bond and become close and she decides to loose her virginity to him.Beagle is part of the The Kimbrough family.Easy is the patriarch and he's grieving over the recent loss of his wife,Guy is the older son who has been away from the family and just returned after learning that his mother had passed away, and Beagle is the youngest son. The film explores the lives of this two interconnected families. The Cake Eaters is independent film-making at his best,my only complaint is that the movie was too short. How many times do you hear that? Exactly, the movie was that good. I just feel like the story could have been explored more and it could had been taken to another level.I don't know why the director didn't push the envelope a little,he clearly knew what he was doing and the story had great potential; don't take me wrong,this is a very good movie, I just think with more running time it could have been a tremendous movie. Kristin Stewart's performance is truly incredible.When playing characters with these type of diseases, there's always a tendency to overact or go over the top but she played this role perfectly.The academy award nominee Bruce Dern who played Easy was great as well. A great piece of work that left me wanting more.

7.5/10

In a backwater town in upstate New York, Georgia Kaminski (Kristin Stewart), a teenage girl with a terminal nervous disorder, finds herself torn between the frivolity of her grandmother (Elizabeth Ashley) and overly protective mother who, in the hopes of bringing awareness and humanity to her daughter's disease, takes controversial photos of Georgia in the nude. Several miles away, aspiring musician Guy Kimbrough (Jayce Bartok) returns to the house of estranged father Easy (Bruce Dern) and younger brother Beagle (Aaron Stanford), trying to hide the secret of his failure to make it big. Easy is the town butcher, recently widowed, with secrets of his own, while Beagle, the kid who never left home, has surrendered his life to the care of his father and late mother, and struggles to find an identity of his own. Kaminskis and Kimbroughs conjoin dramatically when Georgia, hoping to find love in her life, and to find it before it's too late, courts the affection of Beagle, whom she meets at an outdoor flea market. The innocent but contentious relationship causes a series of reckonings, as both families are forced to contend with the heaps of emotional baggage that have piled up in their lives.

Masterson keeps it real with this one. The drama is understated, the tension is subtle, and the characters are both distinct and believable. Hats off to Kristin Stewart, who manages to be a dozen things at once – tragic but not pitiful, strong, endearing, funny, unconventionally sexy, and none of the clichés we've grown to associate with any of Hollywood's notorious mental illnesses. Remaining hats to Bruce Dern, a long-time favorite of mine, who keeps a lid on things and never fails to command our respect, even as his character slides deeper into dubious behavior.

In many ways, the film's strengths almost become its undoing. The sustained, understated quality of the storytelling prevents the movie from having any kind of real climax, and the immaculate tension set up in the first hour of the movie never quite pays off in a way I would like. That said, it's still a beautiful film, a capstone of movie-making maturity, and deserves the widest audience possible.

Mary Stewart Masterson's film The Cake Eaters is a very well done piece of cinema. A slice of rural life in a sleepy town, we are privy to a period of turmoil and discovery for two families living there. The Kimbrough's have recently lost their matriarch and a second family is dealing with the hardships of raising a child with Friedriech's Ataxia. Both groups are thrust together with some chance meetings, helping each other get through the tough times and remember the good in living life. There is a lot of heart on display and subtlety in its portrayal. We see just enough of every story thread to understand the emotions going on inside the heads of all the characters—emotions that are very complicated and co-existing with their exact opposites: can love ever really exist separate from hate? The main catalyst for much of what occurs stems from the return of Guy Kimbrough, back from a three-year, self-imposed exile of rock n' roll life in NYC. It is an interesting welcome; one mixed with happiness at seeing him and disappointment in the fact that he abandoned them all when they needed him the most. Played by the screenwriter, Jayce Bartok, it is a role that bares similarities to the only other film I have seen him in, Suburbia. There he was a returning rockstar seeing how different he had become when re-connecting with old friends, here he is that same guy, only now with the realization that his dream is over. This is a one-way ticket back home to start over and hope to find what it was he lost in those years away. Needing to make amends with the father and brother he left, the girl he walked out on, and the mother he missed saying goodbye to, Bartok does well showing the sadness and regret along with the hope of rebirth.

His introduction back into the life of his brother has a very real effect on the younger Beagle. Played wonderfully by Aaron Stanford, (in a huge departure from his turn as Pyro in the X-Men films), he is reminded of how he had to put his life on hold to care for his parents, one dying and one unable to stay and watch. After meeting the granddaughter of his father's old friend/flame, he finds that he must start to live for himself. Although she is younger and afflicted with a debilitating muscular disease, the two find a bond and common ground with each other. They see someone like themselves, wanting to find a relationship and person to be with. The climax of their relationship is very strong and well played, allowing the audience to discover whether their connection was strictly of convenience or much more. Kristen Stewart is fantastic as the girl Georgia. The way she must control her body in order for the disease to be real is effective, but also her smile at the hand God dealt her is perfect. This young woman knows her fate and tries to overcome any feelings of sadness by just living.

The beauty of The Cake Eaters is that it unfolds very unassumingly, taking its story and its progression as naturally as possible. There are no twists and turns or bombastic moments to hit the audience over the head with. Instead we are allowed a glimpse into the world of this town, where flea markets, butcher shops, and outskirt motels are commonplace and well used. Each moment is completely authentic, from the acting to the relationships uncovered as the film goes on. Even some little moments shine above the rest like when Easy Kimbrough, (the always great Bruce Dern), is telling his girlfriend that he can't continue their relationship if it remains a secret. He is so heartfelt and she as well trying to keep him for herself in the way she had grown accustomed, but once the phone rings and she finds that her granddaughter has gone off with his son, she turns on him and screams that Beagle isn't good enough for Georgia. Emotion is a powerful thing and the blunt truth of that scene just rings completely true.

With subtle directing and the fearless use of quiet moments to let the actors breathe and do their thing, Masterson has crafted a gem of a film. I kept thinking of another film with similar tonal qualities and settings in Tully while watching. This is strange because I don't remember much about that film except for really enjoying it, yet somehow I just felt they had a kinship with each other. Definitely an independent feature, I hope it will be able to eventually break the festival circuit and get a proper release either theatrically or on DVD. It is definitely one worth watching for those interested in small character studies and really effective drama.

It deals with human relationships in their particular circumstances. Each of these two families has special conditions. In the past, as well as over time, we like to see the continuation of the film at the middle, but it seems that the film suddenly loses its feature and leaves us with an entirely unfinished one. In fact, one of the three parts of the film's effect is left to the end that is surprising. Kristine Stewart, in the role of Georgia, plays a fantastic role and satisfactory view of the character of the story, and to some extent the core of the film finds out with his story and circumstances. A girl who has a nerve system disorder and her movement status is severely affected by her illness and does not have much time to live until she comes to the conclusion that she will continue to live in a different way. He is looking for a relationship with Dwight, but not in a love affair, but just for experience and happening. On the other hand, the father of Dwight, who recently lost his wife, is moving forward with the grandmother of Georgia in the past, and the confrontation between these two events led to a story that spells the way in the final sequences of the film Depicting where the father of Dwight and the grandmother of Georgia share with each other what is happening. Despite the fascination of the story, we did not witness the endearing and fruitful of the film.

"The Cake Eaters" is so subtle a story and pleasing a film you won't notice how great it is until it is over. Much credit is due to Jayce Bartok, the screenwriter, as well as, Mary Stuart Masterson, the director, to fulfill the hearts of its characters while filling the souls of the audience. "Eaters" sweet subtleties meet heavy hearts touching on such powerful subjects as love, death, secrecy, adultery, disability, virginity, abandonment, and rebellion. With each character involved in one or more relationships: father/son, mother/daughter, grandmother/granddaughter, brothers; love: new, old, rekindled, exes; they are pulled apart at the seams, some almost to a breaking point, only to be shown how close they are.

At the heart of the story, in between all the eaters of cake, is Georgia, a young woman "living" with a rare genetic disorder that affects her mobility but not her spirit. Georgia is played wonderfully and with grace by Kristen Stewart ("Into the Wild"). Her performance is at the center of this story and is worthy of any if not all accolades (Oscar?). You find yourself so enmeshed in her ability to convince, that she makes "The Cake Eaters" truly magnificent.

As up-state New York sets the tone for the story it throws you back in time, maybe the 70's, while staying in the present. The film opens with footage of old home movies and settles nicely in a gray, rainy, folk art town, where everyone knows your name. And it sure seems nice to have been a part of it.